Create Championship Content [Phase 2 | Module 1]

Well, guys, we're going to kick it off today by doing a quick review of last week. So if you recall how we wrapped up our call last week, we talked about the electronic pitch which, which is also known as the elevator pitch. And the question we all get asked that we often don't have a good answer to is, so what do you do? And the answer we don't want to give is, oh, I'm a health insurance broker or I'm a commercial risk advisor, or worse yet, it's complicated.

What we want to be able to do is give them a quick little pitch.

Short to the point, two sentences max. It tells them who we help, what problem do we help them solve, what's the solution we help them solve it with, and what's the result to create? So if you guys remember, first part of creating a good electronic elevator pitch is start by stating the problem, problem or pain point your typical client face.

Then talk about your solution that's going to solve it and finish it off with the results someone will experience when they hire you.

So the example I used with ours, our pitch sounds like this. It's frustrating when your insurance agency isn't generating the sales opportunities it needs to hit its revenue goals. The complete Game Marketing Playbook solution will give you the plan to generate more sales opportunities so your agency can thrive. Anybody want to take a shot at their own electronic pitch?

Who is going to step up?

I'll step up.

All right, go ahead, Mary.

Okay, so I have several, right? So if I can find it.

I have several that I work with. One I use.

In my BNI group and I kind of switch that one up all the time.

Yesterday I was working on it and it says I specialize in optimizing employee benefit packages for employers, ensuring they attract and retain top talent while maximizing cost efficiency. Let me help you design a comprehensive and competitive benefits programs that empowers your workforce and supports your business goals.

Okay, so quick. This will be a quick live workshop so everybody can kind of hear this. State your repeat your first statement again.

The first sentence, I specialize in optimizing employee benefit packages for employers, ensuring they attract and retain top talent while maximizing cost efficiency.

Okay, so what I heard there, Mary, and this is the mistake everybody makes, including myself. When I started, what you just said in the first statement was more the solution right out of the gate, right? I help companies do this. Let's start with the problem. So if that's what you help people do, there are two clear problems you define there. I heard recruiting and I heard cost.

Right.

So how you could start the pitch with the problem versus going right into the solution is it could be. Hey, it could be really frustrating when you. And when it's hard to recruit and you have a benefits program that's too expensive.

Okay, I help businesses and then go into. Does that make sense?

Yes.

And this is. This is really important, guys, because when I work with advisors, 9 out of 10 times when I ask people, and this happened in call number two, if you guys remember, what problem do you solve?

What most people want to do is they go right into the solution. When I say what problem you solve, you'll say, well, I help companies. No, no, no. That's the solution. Start with the problem.

So, Mary, all of it's great. Just talk about the problem first.

Who else? Hey, I'll go. Andy, this is Tim. All right, Tim. So what I said is many employers are frustrated with out of control health insurance premiums and how it's impacting their budget. PAI uses the PAI bundle to help them regain control. There you go.

There it is. Short and sweet. I like that. That's. You came out with a problem. I heard a very clear solution. PIA bundle and a very, very to the point result. Because just on that statement, somebody might go, okay, well, how do you do that, Tim? And that's exactly what you want them to say. How do you do that? Good. Let's do one more. Anybody else want to share theirs?

I will. All right, so health insurance is the right. Actually, right here. The rising health care costs are leaving employers and employees feeling frustrated. My clients use my blueprint process to unbundle their benefits into six toolboxes, which provides them a framework designed around transparency and alignment. Okay.

What I might suggest there, Colton, is a little more clarity on the back end.

So repeat the statement you made on the back end. My clients start with my clients. My clients use my blueprint process to unbundle their benefits into six toolboxes. Okay, so pause right there.

Anybody have.

Anybody see where there might be a little confusion in that statement? Let's, let's, let's, let's wipe by whiteboard. This for Colton is good. Where. Where would you see confusion from the person hearing this? The unbundling port. They might go, what the heck is unbundling, Colton? Right. And even on the back end, I think you said transparency and alignment. They might go, what does that mean? And so what I would tell you to do the whole first half. Great. Second half, instead of saying my clients use, I would just say our blueprint process. You don't have to say my clients to say, our blueprint process.

Helps companies cause. What were the problems you solved? What state make the first statement again? Rising health care costs. It's frustrating to deal with it. Our blueprint process helps companies control their health insurance costs.

By creating transparency in. In. In claims, maybe, and alignment with their partners or something like that. Yeah, that's good. Here's. Here's two things, guys. I'm going to share with you and I. As subtle as this sounds, it is the secret to good marketing. Number one, when I talked about the problem, just focus on the problem. Don't go right into the solution. Number two, the less words you can use in your marketing, the better it is. And not the. The number one tip I will give you guys with marketing is we all are guilty of this. Ditch clever for clear. We all want to use words that sound good, but if it confuses the prospect in any way, they're done. Just be super clear. I want you guys to think about your marketing. Your message has to be so simple, a fifth grader would understand what you're talking about.

Anybody else? We'll do one more and then we'll dive into today's content, which is content.

I got one.

All right, Rachel, go ahead.

It's frustrating when your employee benefits continue to rise and coverage gets less. The problem is, the industry has convinced you there are no other solutions but to accept those 10 to 15% rate increases. However, our Angler strategy provides transparency, allowing you to take control of your benefits by knowing where your money is going and customize your plan design. So I agree it's too long.

All right, so here's how you shorten this. Everybody listen. State do the first half again.

It's frustrating when your employee benefits costs continue to rise and coverage gets less. The problem is, the industry has convinced you there are no other solutions but to accept those 10 to 15% rate increases.

Boom. All right, everybody hear what she just did? I'm going to shorten it. You ready? It's frustrating to watch your insurance costs go up and your benefits get worse and feel like there's nothing you can do about it. Done.

You don't need to go into the 10 for 10 to 15% increases. Just short and sweet. It's frustrating when your benefits cost your health insurance costs continue to go up and your benefits get worse and. And you feel like there's nothing you can do.

Perfect.

And now go into our Angler program. Yep.

The best part about this, guys, is every time you do this You're, I'm going to, you're going to hear from me. Shorten it up, shorten it up, shorten it up. Same thing goes for emails. How many of you guys opened an email before? And the first thing you see is this big lengthy paragraph. What do you do when you see that?

You go, oh, I'll get to that later. And how, how often do you actually get to that later? Almost never. Short and sweet. And we're going to talk about that today, because today.

We are talking about creating championship content.

So when it comes to content, here's the first thing I want you guys to remember. What is the what? Tell me what words.

Or visuals come to mind when you hear the word content to shout them out?

Information.

Information. What else? Videos. Videos.

Anything else? Anything else? Anybody? Anybody think social media when they hear content first? Okay, most people think social media. What I want you guys to remember with content in, in the context of today's module is it's anything that comes out of your mouth. Content is anything that comes out of your marketing slicks. Anything that comes out of your social media post. All of that is content. Emails is content. Webinars are content. By the way, Bob Donahue, welcome to the Call today. I didn't get a chance to say hi to you. Glad to be here. Sorry. Awesome. No, you're good. So content, guys, is anything that comes out of our mouth, that's on our, on our slicks, that's in our webinars, in our emails, on our social media, that's content. That's where we want to start. So here are some of the truths. Content creates connection. And you're going to see this in a later module. But the thing that content does for you is it helps bridge the gap from where your prospects are today to where you need them to be. Because here's the reality. When you meet prospects for the first time.

Majority of their time, their mindset is right here. And you need to, you need it to be over here for them to buy from you. You have to shift their mindset. That, that's the majority of the time. Right? The problem is if the only time you get the chance to shift their mindset is when you're in front of them in a meeting, it's going to take a long time to shift their mindset.

Content can do the work for you without you having to be in front of them because content is going to put you in front of them. That makes sense. That's how we want to view content. Here's another truth about Today's world, people can't buy what they can't see.

If I can't see you, if I don't see content from you, I don't know you exist.

And I think we could all agree that the noise in our industry, in any market is a lot today. And there's a lot of brokers companies can pick from. And if I don't see you, I'm not going to remember you.

Here's a great example. How many of you have called a prospect before? Get them on the phone, they say, interesting, call me back in six months. So you do. You get them on the phone again and they say, oh, we actually changed brokers three months ago.

And you're like, wait, you told me to call you in six months, I did. And now you already changed brokers. What in the hell? They forgot about you.

They didn't see anything from you, even though they agreed to take your call six months ago. You didn't do anything in between to be memorable. You were forgettable. That's a problem. And too many advisors in our industry are forgettable because there's a lot to choose from. We want to be unforgettable. And the last truth is your prospects expect more value today from you before they ever hire you, more than they ever have before.

You have to bring good stuff to them for them to hire you. The days of, I'm not going to share anything good until you hire me, those are over.

You have to bring a ton of value before prospects hire you today. Because here's my biggest concern about the industry right now. I see too many people, too many advisors that I call the outdated operator. They deploy tactics that aren't as effective as they used to be. And I use cold calling as an example. I'm not saying cold calling is dead, but it's harder than it used to be. It takes 18 calls today to reach one prospect. It is harder than it used to be.

I have a lot of people in this industry who don't believe in marketing. And I look them in the eye and I say, guys, marketing is your oxygen. It's the oxygen for your sales. Unless you are at a point in your career, you are getting so many referrals you don't know what to do with. You have to have marketing. And the third is they act as if social media and the Internet don't exist. I know agencies, guys that still don't let their producers on LinkedIn.

It is one of the mainstream channels of connecting with your prospects and they don't let them Use it. That's what we have in this industry right now. And. And we've got to change it because so much has changed in 2023. The reality is sales is about who knows you, likes you and trusts you. We all agree relationships are built on trust. And I think we could all agree building a relationship isn't as easy as it was prior to the pandemic.

Prior to the pandemic. For my advisors who were selling prior to the pandemic, what would you do to build a relationship with a prospect? What would be some activities?

Happy hour. Happy hour, Lunch, Golf. Golf, Baseball game. Right. We schmoozed them back then. Well, how easy is it to do that nowadays?

I know we're back to live events. Right. But as a society, could we all agree we all can't. We all kind of got lazy with social media interactions. How many of you, Come on, be honest now. How many of you have been invited to, like, a live event? And you're like, yeah, I'm working from home today. It's pretty comfortable here. I'm just gonna stay here.

Yep, we've all done that since 2020. As much as we're like, oh, I can't wait for live events to come back and networking and interacting, most of us now are like, yeah, I've been at my computer all day. You know, I can just go sit out on the deck and have a beer. I'm good. We're all guilty of that. So building a relationship is not as easy as it used to be. But here's the best part. This is the opportunity, guys, you have to leverage today. Good content helps you stand out in a crowded market. You can build a relationship with content before anybody ever meets you.

And imagine walking into a meeting with a prospect who feels like they already know you.

This is what happens when you create good content. One of the best compliments I get is when I jump on a call with an advisor, a prospect, and they say, I feel like I already know you because they've been viewing my content.

We have clients who use content very well, and they walk into prospecting meetings with credibility established. Guys, everything changes when this happens. And this, Anybody can do it. The key is anybody can do it if you're willing to put the work in and commit. So I'm going to share my quick story just to kind of give you guys a little background of this whole module. I will tell you guys, my entire career, I was raised in a family. I don't know if anybody else is the same. I was raised in A family that it was not entrepreneurial. My parents were two teachers, very much about be comfortable, be safe, live paycheck to paycheck. Anybody have family, grew up in that kind of situation.

Well, I was in the industry for 19, almost 20 years before I decided to go out on my own. 41 years old, growing up, never having an entrepreneurial bone in my body.

But I will tell you, the only reason that I was able to go out on my own was because I had built name recognition through my content. Now, I'm not telling the folks who are not on their own to go out on your own, but what I'm saying is when you build name recognition through content.

It gives you the freedom to do a lot of good things. It gives you the freedom to take more risks.

Because with that name recognition established.

You can almost do anything. I really believe that. And the other thing I want to share with this is the number one thing that drives our company today at Complete Game is our content.

And I'm going to share something with you. And I, I don't want to share it to brag. I want to share to make a point. Because anybody can do this. We grew 75% last year and we're on pace to grow another 75% this year. And I don't make any cold calls.

We very, we do very little outbound, which we should do more. Every thing we've done with Growth Gang is done through our content.

Anybody can do this if you're willing to commit, because here's the name of the game and I want to be very clear about this.

Anybody on this call today think they're the smartest person in our industry.

There's always somebody smarter than you, right?

And we are an industry that prides itself on knowledge. A lot of us think knowledge is the key to winning business. But I'm going to tell you a very, very real truth. When it comes to content, you don't need to be the smartest. But if I see you all the time, you become my go to expert.

If I'm getting content from you all the time on the topic of health insurance or commercial insurance, you are my go to expert, plain and simple.

And so my challenge to everyone on today's call is as we dive into the exercise part of this, what can you do to start creating a more consistent presence?

What can you do to start becoming more searchable?

Because that's what the name of the game is today is. Name recognition is everything.

When that company is in their office having a conversation about their displeasure with their current advisor and they're starting to talk about who else could we talk to? You want your name to pop up immediately?

It's not about being the smartest. It's about being the most unforgettable. Because at the end of the day, the buyers you're trying to attract, the prospects you're trying to attract, they're going to buy when they're ready. Not when you want them to.

But when they're ready, you want to be the first one they think of.

So this the the message I want to share with you today and the message that has driven our business, the lesson that has driven our business is exponential awareness leads to exponential growth. And this is where content comes in. The the definition of exponential awareness, according to Andy Neary, I made this up, is it's getting one message in front of a lot of people at one time.

That's the name of the game today. How many of, how many of us, how many people on the call have been in the industry 20 years?

Try to look. Bob, have you been 20 yet? Yeah, just. Okay, Bob, when you got in 20 years ago, how were you taught to prospect.

Cold calling and networking at happy hours, like at the bar? Literally. Like literally. Right? We were taught to cold call, go hang out while your prospects are hanging out. And I was actually taught how to go door to door. Anybody else taught door to door? I started my career at Federated Insurance. I don't know if anybody's heard that name, but their whole strategy was go park your car in an industrial park and go door to door. Yep. Think about the concept of this, guys. When I make a cold call, how many prospects can I call with each call?

One. One. If I go pound on a door, how many doors, how many prospects doors can I pound on at once? Lyle, I love the fact you love door to door. Awesome. You're a rare bird, man. It was all one to one prospecting, right? We call that linear awareness. I could only reach one person at one time. And if you think about cold calling today, guys, again, I'm not saying it's dead, but it's harder than it used to be. It takes 18 calls to reach one prospect today. So let's do some simple math. How many calls do I have to make to hit 10 prospects?

180. Let's say I am a speed dialer and it takes a minute a call, which is way too fast. That's still three hours to get 10 people. If it takes two minutes, that's six hours to get 10 people. I would Rather hit one push of a button and hit hundreds of people at once. That's what we're talking about here today.

So what we're going to go into is what we call our triple crown of exponential awareness.

Now, before I dive in, I want one. I got. I want to remind you one thing, and this is for my veterans that have been around for 15, 20 years. I hope this really hits home. We were all taught it's about your Rolodex. It's about who you know. I started actually at Northwestern Mutual as an intern in college where they used to say, hey, bring in Your list of 100 friends and family because we know you're going to quit in 30 days. And we have your list.

Here's what's changed, guys. It's not about who you know anymore. It's about who knows you.

And I say this, not that. It's not about popularity. No, it's just about who knows you. It's about name recognition. The more people who know you.

It'S easier.

For them to do business with you. And here's where the cold calling and the direct emails and all the direct marketing come into play. The name of the game of content is to create brand awareness.

So that when you deploy the direct marketing tactics of cold calling and emails, people know who you are. When you call that prospect who already knows who you are, the odds they pick up or return are a lot higher. It makes your direct marketing more effective.

But if all you're doing is direct marketing, nowadays, we are all so skeptical of phone calls and emails, it's hard to drive activity. You have to do both. So let's dive into the triple crown. What is the triple crown of content? It starts with these three questions.

What are you saying?

We start we talked about the what last week, right, with the marketing message. What are you saying.

How are you saying it.

And where are you saying it?

I like to think in very practical terms because I don't believe I'm that smart. I have to keep things simple in my life. I think good marketing gain comes down to this. Who are you talking to, what are you saying to them? How are you saying it and where are you saying it. Now we've already talked about the who are you talking to? That was module two. Who's your ideal prospect? Last week we talked about what are you saying? The message. Today we're going to really get into the how and the where.

And then next week we're going to dive into the most popular where, which is LinkedIn.

But here's where you're going to get stuck with content. How do I create it?

What should I say and where should I post it?

The one that gets most people stuck is what should I say? And you know what's so funny about that, guys? If I put you in front of a prospect in, in five minutes, in the next five minutes, would any of you struggle on what to say?

No.

No. But for whatever reason, when I put a camera in front of you and I say, hit record, you're like, I don't know what to say. We're going to change that.

Because how many of you love being in front of a prospect? How many of you love educating a prospect?

I hope you do. You have to do it to sell, right, guys, we're just going to take that and do it more often. We're going to, we're going to have you educate prospects when you're not in front of them. That's. That's what content is. If you love being in front of a prospect, right? And you want more opportunities to do it. Now we have to do the educating more often when we're not in front of them because it's going to create more opportunities to get in front of them. That's all it is. That's what I hit. That's when I struck gold, guys. Back in like 2016, I was like, I love educating prospects. I love presenting to them. But you know what? If I get a couple meetings a week, I'm killing it. I only get to do this like once, twice a week. I said, that's what I'm going to use my content for. I'm going to give myself a chance to educate them more often because I love educating.

And that's what this is about when it comes to content is just do what you keep. Do what you already love to do.

So let's talk about the how you should post. There's three ways people digest content.

Some like to watch content. Anybody here a video watcher? Video Learner? I'm a YouTube guy, so I digest videos all the time.

Some people love to read anybody. Article readers, blog readers.

And in the last decade, we've had the real growth of the audio. Some people love to listen, right? Put a podcast in audiobook. Go work out.

The magic formula of how to create content is if you're doing all three of them because you're hitting audience more, more of your audience. However, I tell people, start with.